Abstract

More than 35 years ago, computer scientist and cognitive
psychologist Allen Newell famously asserted that ‘you can’t play 20 questions with nature and win’ (Newell,
1973). Referencing a quiz show in which contestants attempted to guess, with up to 20 questions, an object that the quizmaster held written on a card, Newell was alluding to the near complete failure of psychological research in achieving anything approaching unified growth.

There was a ceaseless stream of research into interesting facets of psychology, yet no corresponding growth that in any way coalesced into a unified science. In contrast to sciences such as physics, mathematics, chemistry and biology, the endeavour of psychology was a fruitless,
pseudo-scientific one – a ‘discipline’ characterised by pockets of disconnected research that, although employing a
multitude of researchers, is nevertheless hopelessly doomed to failure as a scientific enterprise.